Re: [tlug] Open Access Journals

[Raymond Wan <rwan.kyoto@example.com>]

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 11:47 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull
<stephen@example.com> wrote:
> Raymond Wan writes:
>  > My issue with open access publishing is that it is really at the
>  > start of a journey of what publishing should be.
>
> OK.  In the same way, my question is where do you think it should go?


Well, I set myself up for that one, didn't I??  Honestly, I don't
know.  I just don't like seeing open access publishers patting
themselves on the back about how great they are as if that's the last
stage in "academic publishing evolution"...

If there are 3 groups:  authors, publishers, and readers.

1)  The old model is bad since readers have to pay to read papers.
Sometimes to read papers that their tax payer dollars (or yen) paid
for.  (Gets tricky when it comes to US research and a Japanese reader,
I guess.)

2)  The current open access publishing model is good, but I'm bothered
by publishers now accepting anything to raise their revenue.  The only
thing stopping them is their concern about the journal's impact
factor.

3)  Let's eliminate the publisher since we clearly have the IT tools
to do most of what they do.  While they don't have a big say on the
quality, their name does mean something to some people.  I think I
would decide to say yes/no to submit or review for a journal based
partly on the publisher as the "first hurdle".  A "blog"-like format
can be adopted, just like with the STAP controversy.  I'd be a bit
concerned if someone would take those ideas and develop their own work
without contributing to the original one.  I've seen in one case where
one group disagreed with the other and instead of sending e-mails to
ask for clarification...they published a paper.


Returning to my very first point.  I am in support of open access
publishing.  I just want to point out that, unless they are backed by
the government or universities, there is a potential problem.  They
can keep accepting papers with only impact factors holding them
back...  They are more than IT tools...they also bring authors and
editorial board members together.


> Indeed.  Business OA publishers do charge a buttload of money (unit is
> hundreds of dollars, value varies), but they all look like scams (ie,
> they publish every field I've heard of and some I hadn't heard of
> before, which is impossible to do with any level of quality especially
> on the tight turnarounds they promise).  Maybe doctors would pay in
> the thousands of dollars (although on second thought they're expected
> to publish in the thousands of articles, so maybe only hundreds per).
> So I suspect there's just a "pay to play" culture in some fields.
>
> The economists are not so concerned with slick quality, and are pretty
> unified about who the top current journals are, as well as who you
> want on your editorial boards in each field.


One example that comes to mind is PLOS One.  Perhaps I'm just bitter
that I haven't got something into this journal yet :-) but, it's
policy is:

http://www.plosone.org/static/reviewerGuidelines#about

"Unlike many journals which attempt to use the peer review process to
determine whether or not an article reaches the level of 'importance'
required by a given journal, PLOS ONE uses peer review to determine
whether a paper is technically sound and worthy of inclusion in the
published scientific record. Once the work is published in PLOS ONE,
the broader community is then able to discuss and evaluate the
significance of the article"

Indeed, if someone has put some time into a piece of work, it should
see the light of day.  But, if technical soundness is the main
criteria, then the above statement paves the way for including a lot
of articles; each of which authors have to pay an up-front publication
charge...

I think the jury's still out on this one.  Some decent work does into
this journal, but you could redo a study with only a little novelty
but technically sound, and it should get in.  I *guess*, "We confirmed
the results in someone else's paper 5 years ago." might count...
[Random example; not a statement from personal experience.]


>  > Well, there is obviously a trade-off that is not quite black or white
>  > when it comes to making money.  If you start refusing second tier
>  > papers, then you increase your revenue but people won't look
>  > favourably at your journal.  Impact factor goes down and then it's
>  > difficult to climb back up again.
>
> I don't really see an issue, if you're mostly interested in making
> money.  Readers don't look favorably at your journal, but non-readers
> (specifically, promotion committees and deans) count it the same as
> all the others, except the ones where you need to be lucky or Nobel-
> class to get a paper in.


Yes, I should clarify by saying there is nothing wrong with third tier
work...lot of what I produce falls into that category.  :-)  Thus, we
maybe shouldn't lump "publishers" and "journals" in the same bin.
There are both good ones and bad ones -- people in the area know which
is which.  Those that aren't (i.e., the general media) care less about
this and can easily use a bad one as an example of the whole.


> Well, one of the improvement you propose (for high quality OA journals)
> would be like the IETF's HTML versions of RFCs.  Example:
>
>     http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2046
>
> Note the links in the header: different versions, diffs, errata,
> updated-by, and obsoletes.


Yes, that would be good to see.  Now, the missing piece is for
academia to recognize such contributions for hiring, promotions, etc.
That kind of inertia is hard to go against.

As an aside, some journals (I can't remember which) suggest publishing
the reviews of journals either with/without names.  This is on the
right track, in terms of permitting two-way communication, but with
names is a bad idea as some academics can get really petty...

In some areas in CS, they have annual "competitions" to see which
method is best.  It breaks the peer-review model but is arguably more
informative than papers which always say the authors' method is the
best.  Something that perhaps only CS and a few other areas can do.


>  > I don't completely quite agree with you here.  I'll admit that quality
>  > control is primarily handled by editorial boards.  No arguments there.
>  > But probably not the fact that publishers have no effect.
>  >
>  > Some people still judge papers by which journals they were published
>  > in without looking at the composition of the editorial board at the
>  > time the journal was accepted.  So, their names still mean something
>  > to some people.  The web hasn't (IMHO) made publishers obsolete.
>
> But journal != publisher.  Springer and Elsevier (are they still
> different? snicker) publish hundreds of journals each.  People look at
> the journal name, not the publisher name.


:-)  I (sometimes) look at the publisher.  Before I click the link to
the journal, I (indirectly) know the publisher and yes, that does have
an effect on my perception.  i.e.,
http://www.this-is-the-publisher.com/journal-name ...


> It's not by chance.  Publishers in print media have substantial
> technical advantages over the average joe in production and
> distribution.  They are a nexus where authors can be connected into an
> editorial board.  Author/editors value the book opportunities that may
> come from knowing top people at the publisher.  Etc.  But these
> advantages are rapidly becoming historical.
...


Yes, I agree.  Big publishers also have a substantial amount of money
stored up from years of being in the business to advance -- they have
a head start.

The question is really "how rapidly" will they become obsolete.  IMHO,
not today...yet.

Ray